


Brighter in the Darkness

by December_Daughter



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Eventual Swan Queen, F/F, F/M, Gen, mentions of Captain Swan, mentions of Outlaw Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:18:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3957334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/December_Daughter/pseuds/December_Daughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Emma’s chest cracks as a dry sob scratches its way out of her throat. Regina’s not at all afraid of her; her eyes don’t stray for one moment to the wreckage around them, and oh, Emma loves her. She shouldn’t and it’s useless – it won’t matter, soon – but she does. </p><p>She loves Regina Mills, and if she was less than what she’s become, or more than she’s been, she’d do something about it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AN: This is my first foray into the Swan Queen fandom. I hope that I've done these characters justice and kept them acceptably in character.
> 
> Spoilers: None. Set after the Season 4 finale; some references to those events.
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine. No copyright infringement intended.

Regina wants to believe that she's the first to catch on, but she isn't. Henry has that honor.

Henry is the one looking into Regina's eyes as she explains Emma's sacrifice with a broken voice as they both try not to cry; he's the one standing next to her when the rest of the town finds out, and she gives Leroy the upbraiding of his life for caring more about what Emma can do for them than for her safety as a person when he loudly whines about who will save them from the next disaster. Regina starts by chastising Leroy, but by the end of it she's yelling at everyone she can see about how maybe if they'd made more of an effort to make Emma feel as though she were more than just a weapon she wouldn't feel the ridiculous need to save everyone.

That shocks everyone into gaping at her as if she's just pulled a page from Maleficent's book and turned into a dragon. Only Henry feels the tremble in his mother's fingers.

Still, it's not until a week later that Henry Mills realizes something has intrinsically changed for his mother (and another few minutes to realize what that something is).

They're in the Sorcerer's house because they've exhausted every lead in Regina's vault. The tables in the library are covered in open books, evidence of the entire Charming-Mills family's effort to find some way to reverse what Emma has done. Regina and Henry are the only ones still there and they're mostly quiet aside from his mother's occasional angry slamming of a book cover.

Emma herself has been widely absent in the two weeks since what Henry – and, he thinks, his mother – have begun referring to as D-Day. Regina had brought home the dagger and immediately given it to Henry whilst simultaneously convincing them all that maybe it was best to let Miss Swan have her distance for now.

So the two of them are alone with the tomes, until suddenly they aren't.

Robin has arrived with a scowl. Henry neither speaks nor leaves as the thief tries to convince Regina that sleep is the smarter alternative, and that their as of yet fruitless labors can be safely postponed for now. That goes down about as smooth as a cactus.

Regina tries to keep her voice to a whisper-hiss, but that stops the moment Henry hears Robin say, "And does that matter?"

"Of course it matters," Regina blusters. "It's Emma. She's not some faceless stranger, Robin, she's Henry's mother. And my friend."

Henry doesn't think he can be any prouder of his mom than he is in that moment.

"Emma Swan gave herself to the darkness for me, Robin, so that I wouldn't have to bear that burden again. How could I leave her to do the same?"

"It was her choice, Regina."

"And it was a stupid one," Regina bites out. Then, calmer, "I can never have a happy ending knowing what it cost, and who paid the price."

Henry feels as though his chest is going to explode with the love and pride he feels, and the moment Robin leaves he stands and goes to throw his arms around his mom.

"I love you," Henry tells her. "And I'm proud of you."

Regina squeezes him tightly and absorbs the support. Her voice is thick when she replies, "We'll get her back."

"I know. You'll find a way."

Henry makes sure they go home soon after that, and the next night he insists that his mom make him dinner so that he can make sure she eats as well. He persuades her to go to bed early.

Oddly enough, it's Mary Margaret who catches on next. She, David, Regina, and Henry are seated around the table in the Charming family apartment when Emma appears near the door. Henry is first to recover from the shock of her sudden appearance and he throws himself into her arms. Emma murmurs her familiar, "Hey, kid," and presses a kiss into his hair.

Mary Margaret stands with the idea of hugging Emma as well, but she hesitates. She can't help thinking that her daughter is still angry with her and isn't certain a hug would be welcome.

The moment of hesitation opens the door for Regina, who stands and sweeps into the space in front of Emma. The two women haven't spoken since that night in the street.

"What the hell were you thinking, Miss Swan?" Regina demands.

The brunette is glaring at her, but Emma just smiles and wraps a hand around Regina's bicep. She squeezes once in reassurance.

"You okay?" Emma queries.

"Fine, thanks to your ridiculously overdeveloped savior complex," Regina grouses.

Mary Margaret tenses at the reminder of said complex and what was done to make sure Emma had it, prepared for the comment to stoke Emma's anger, but it doesn't.

Instead, Emma's hand slides up the back of Regina's arm a few inches. "I'm fine, Regina. Really."

Mary Margaret stares at the back of her daughter's hand and tries to recall all the times Regina and Emma have touched that didn't consist of one of them with a hand around the others throat; none come to mind.

Emma doesn't stay long. She asks after everyone, baby Neal and Hook and even Robin, and then excuses herself. "I just need a few more days," she says.

Mary Margaret hugs her fiercely and then makes way for David to do the same. When they're done, Emma surveys them all as they stand together in front of her. Four years ago she would have never thought such a thing possible.

"We love you, Emma," Mary Margaret tells her. It feels like she's speaking for all of them.

So Emma says, "I know," and "I love you, too." Her eyes linger on Henry and she offers him a tentative smile, and her eyes flick up to Regina so that they can have what looks like a private conversation, and then she disappears.

Regina doesn't begin to understand until what seems to be ages later, but is really only a matter of weeks. Emma has stopped trying to hide out and, aside from a rise in acerbic comments and a few dark jokes that sound as if they've been taken directly from the Evil Queen's playbook, appears mostly unchanged.

Nothing has come of Regina's exhaustive information searches, or of anyone else's for that matter. She's damn near driven herself into the ground despite Henry's attempt to even her out (and a number of protests from Mary Margaret about her health), and things between her and Robin haven't been this frosty since … their first meeting? Maybe not even then.

They're in the library again. Everyone's there: David and Mary Margaret, Henry, Regina, Hook, and even Robin. Only Henry seems to be keeping the discouragement at bay, but it's a losing fight. No one can find any account of someone doing what Emma has done. Every Dark One in the history of Dark Ones had been so by choice; Emma is the only person to hold the title by sacrifice. Noble, pure of heart and intent sacrifice.

She's the only one to have such immense power, and not want it.

The thought gets stuck in Regina's head. It spins there like a top, collecting the threads of her discarded ideas and tangling them into a mess.

That's how Emma finds them all: Regina's brow furrowed as she tries to follow the string of her thoughts and everyone else looking forlorn.

"We can't find anything, Emma," David tells her gently.

Emma stops in the middle of the room to look at them all and then moves to put a hand on Henry's shoulder. She doesn't seem surprised at her father's declaration.

"It would appear that there's no way to take the darkness out of you, love." Killian's voice is somehow calm and grating at the same time. "Not without repeating the act that did so in the first place."

Regina is too preoccupied to notice that there's tension between the pirate and the Sheriff. The jumble of thoughts in her head has begun to straighten itself out again, and she can feel her heartbeat speeding up as she follows them down the newly revealed road.

"Who says we have to?" Regina bursts then. All eyes turn to her as she rises out of her seat.

"What?" Mary Margaret asks.

"You want us to just leave Emma like this?" David adds.

Regina smiles in triumph. She can feel the spark, the "A-Ha!" moment as it slides up her spine and ignites her nerve endings.

"Yes," Regina answers decisively. "Because there's nothing wrong with her."

They're all gaping at her now, everyone save Emma, who wears that expression she always does when she's confused and trying to work something out.

"There isn't?" Robin challenges in disbelief. That disbelief changes to outrage as he stands and stalks toward Regina. "You've been working on this for weeks, running yourself into the ground to find a way to reverse this and now you just want us to believe that everything is fine?"

Regina knows better than perhaps anyone but Mary Margaret and David that Emma has a temper. She has seen it often, and been on the receiving end of it more than once. It's easy to forget because Emma doesn't jump to anger quickly – unlike Regina, whose anger is always simmering just beneath the surface – so it's even more startling in the moments that she does.

This is one of them.

Henry is seated to Regina's right, and Emma slides away from her son and in front of Regina before Robin has taken more than a handful of steps. Her face is fierce and her eyes dark; the lights crackle and dim overhead as she gathers power to herself.

"Don't take another step," Emma commands, and Robin halts. "Stay away from her."

No one is breathing save Regina, who is stunned into momentary immobility. There is no way to misread the protective stance Emma has adopted, but neither is there a way to easily process it.

"Miss Swan," Regina manages to soothe, "Robin would never hurt me." Emma's posture remains rigid and the pull of magic is like lightning against Regina's skin, so she tries again. She puts a hand on Emma's arm, her fingers splaying wide in the area just above the crook of her elbow, and squeezes. "Emma."

The blonde relaxes enough that the magic hanging in the air dissipates. Emma takes a step to the side and folds her arms over chest, and the whole room breathes a sigh of relief. Robin doesn't attempt to approach Regina again.

"As I was saying," Regina begins again. She clears her throat to get rid of the shakiness she hears in her tone. "We don't have to fix Miss Swan, because there's nothing wrong with her."

Hook laughs. The sound is sharp and ugly in the silence, and he cuts it off abruptly when five sets of eyes turn on him as though he's about to be eaten alive.

Bravely, Robin ventures, "Nothing wrong with the woman who nearly attacked me a moment ago?"

"She was protecting my mom!" Henry defends hotly.

"From me?" Robin scoffs. "I would never attack Regina."

"You did have a rather menacing look about you, mate," Hook observes.

Emma sighs and angles herself toward Regina. She looks tired and the tension has drained out of her, so her shoulders sag as though they weigh thousands of pounds.

"Robin's right, Regina," Emma huffs. "I got angry. I could have really hurt him, and all of you."

"But you didn't," Regina urges. "You easily could have just incinerated him where he stands, or blown him through a window, but you didn't. You just frightened him enough to make him stop."

"That's not who I am, 'Gina."

"Maybe it is," she pushes on. "Maybe it should be. Everyone has darkness inside of them, Emma. It's part of life. And something your idiot parents," and Regina ignores the indignant scoffs that issue from across the room, "Apparently can't seem to grasp is that you can be a good person and still have darkness inside you. Darkness doesn't have to be feared as long as you don't allow it to control you."

Emma wavers. She drops her arms out of their defensive position across her chest and she fixes wide blue eyes on Regina. Her mouth turns down but doesn't quite quiver, and Regina automatically reaches for her hand. Emma is frightened, and that fear is quietly drowning her.

"You really believe that?" Emma whispers.

Regina smiles. "I do. You may be the Dark One, but you're also the Savior, and who says you can't be both?"

"You are the only person to be the Dark One by sacrifice," Henry adds.

Mary Margaret and David have caught on now, and David picks up the vein of conversation. "And the only to have the power without actually wanting it. If anyone can be both, Emma, it's you."

Mary Margaret bypasses all of that though, and says earnestly, "You don't have to be who you think everyone wants you to be, Emma. We love you no matter what, just the way you are."

Emma is crying now. The hand of hers that Regina still holds – and she doesn't realize that until now – is trembling. Regina shakes their hands slightly, and the movement draws Emma's attention back to her.

"I'm afraid." Emma's voice is thick and a tear escapes her lashes as she blinks.

Regina knows that fear. She knows the weight of what Emma faces, remembers it from her days as a simple girl with a broken heart on the cusp of becoming the Evil Queen. Now she's no longer either of those people, but the darkness lingers.

She hated Emma Swan once. Regina had vowed to destroy the Savior, and the memory of that time is almost funny to her now. She doesn't want to hurt Emma anymore. She wants to reassure her, and build her up, and protect her – as Emma has done for her.

"I know," Regina replies warmly. "But light always shines brighter in the darkness, Emma, and you're the brightest light I know."

The air leaves Regina's lungs in an audible whoosh as Emma half drags her forward and half crashes into her. She finds herself with strong arms suddenly draped over her shoulders and around her neck, and a separate part of Regina's mind finds it odd that despite all that they have done and faced together, this is the first time they've hugged. Emma smells like fresh citrus and ocean air; her long hair tickles Regina's hands where she clasps them over Emma's back.

"Thank you, Regina." Emma's whisper is warm as it ghosts over Regina's ear.

Things change after that.


	2. Chapter 2

Things change, but not for the better.

* * *

 

Emma doesn't mean to hear them, but she doesn't stop listening.

"What about Merlin?" Mary Margaret asks softly.

"We can't find him," David answers.

"Are we even certain that he could take that magic out of Swan?" That's Hook's voice.

"No." Mary Margaret sighs. "She just seems so tired all the time. I'm worried about what being the Dark One is doing to her."

"You think Regina was wrong, that she can't handle it?" Hook again, and his words make Emma's breast burn with indignant anger.

"Of course she can," Mary Margaret says quickly. "I just … don't want her to have to."

Emma moves away then. The burn in her chest has lessened and she's left thinking of her mother's words; they warm her differently, the heat of love instead of anger, and Emma knows that she would feel the same if Henry was the one in her place.

She's not the most physically affectionate person – though that has more to do with her wariness, and less to do with an aversion to such things – but she waits until her mother is alone in the kitchen and then wraps her tightly in her arms.

"I love you, mom," Emma murmurs.

"I love you, too."

She breathes deeply, pulls the words out of her thoughts and down around her heart to fortify it. "I can do this."

A hot tear falls onto her shoulder and soaks into the material of her shirt. "Oh, Emma. Of course you can."

Mary Margaret sounds so confident, and that single tear is searing Emma's skin, and she wants so much to be right. She wants to live up to Regina's faith in her – there's nothing wrong with her – and be worthy of her mother's easy certainty, and here in Mary Margaret's embrace Emma thinks that she might be to do both of those things.

She just might be able to be the Dark One, and the Savior, and everything else that her family thinks she can be; thinks she is.

So she squeezes her mother and cracks a joke with her father and has cocoa with her kid; and all the while she makes herself forget that she rarely sleeps at night now, and the dreams of a strange man in the middle of the street when she does, and the sickly-sweet voice that whispers _he's coming, he's near_ in her ear.

* * *

 

Emma wakes, and knows: something is coming.

She rises, still in yesterday's clothes, and sneaks out of her parents' apartment to stand on the front doorstep. The night is thick and invites her into its depths with open arms. Emma resists, because it's in her nature to do so and because she's afraid of what the shadows will ask of her. Darkness within, darkness without, and even when she sleeps Emma can't shake the feeling that she's been awake for too long.

She's been awake for ages.

When the dark of midnight does finally draw her out it's into the warmth of mid-July. Storybrooke slumbers peacefully, ignorant of the Savior's passage as she makes her way to the forest.

The Savior who is less of herself with every day that passes; Emma Swan on the outside, and something sinister on the inside. She can still feel the ribbons of darkness that worm their way through her as they weave a tighter cage around her soul. They seek to do what they've always done: snuff out the light. Just as she'd told Robin they would.

Only now it's her light, and she can't regret that as she should because even now her winding thoughts are full of _at least it's not Regina_.

Regina, who has found it in her to believe that she is the Author of her own story; Regina, who believes that Emma can do all and be all, and God, how she's tried. How she still tries.

But Emma knows the truth now. She'd woken with the fire of it searing her from the inside out and it had terrified her, but it'd also whispered to her of cleansing.

The end is approaching and it's not about her, not really; it's about the clawing, cloying sickness within that struggles to bend her to its will.

Emma had believed that she could do this. The fullness of Regina's faith in her has buoyed her up in these long months of trial and there have been days that the only thing keeping her on track are the moments where Regina smiles, and Emma can see her happiness. Then Henry is there, because he's their kid and he's always there, and he hugs her with long arms and words of encouragement.

How long has it been, now? Emma doesn't remember. Time is warped around her, bending and expanding as it bows away from her when it should pass through, straight and immutable. She is in time and out of it, a woman dying of thirst with a sieve for a cup.

She watches Time ignore her, forget her, forsake her; it is a mirror that she stares into, and sees nothing reflected back upon her.

Emma sways to a stop amidst the trees. She's remembered something that she didn't know she'd forgotten, a piece of information that hadn't seemed important until right now: she will live forever this way.

The Dark One is ageless, timeless, a force that moves through the realms without cease – and now, so is she. Henry, and Regina, and her parents; everyone she loves will die, and Emma will continue on.

_No_ , a voice whispers from a great distance, _the end is coming, child_.

But Emma can't hear it, refuses to, because everything is suddenly terrifying and she's so _angry_. She can't be two things at once, not when those things are so diametrically opposed and are systematically destroying her in the hopes of doing the same to each other; she can't go on like this for ages, when all she loves is dead and the last parts of her are dust motes in the wind; she can't, she can't, she can't.

* * *

 

Emma opens her eyes to gray daylight that dapples the ground through the treetops.

Everything around her is dead. She's the lone living thing in a circle that sweeps away from her and stretches for at least a mile. The trees are charred and burnt, black husks of their former lush glory, and the dirt is dirt no longer, but ash. Emma's eyes survey the damage, and then a shroud in her mind pulls back and allows her to perceive that which she couldn't before: bodies.

Emma lurches to the side and vomits until she's dry heaving. When she can wipe her mouth and make herself look again she sees animals: deer and wolves and birds, rabbits and foxes. Some of them are as black as the trees, but some of them could pass for sleeping if Emma didn't know that the pale dust coating their fur and the ground near them was all that's left of their hearts.

What has she done?

She vomits again and the bile burns the back of her throat as she cries. In that moment, Emma hates; she hates herself, and the beast she's invited to take hold of her, and that she'd ever come to Storybrooke.

She hates, and can't remember why she shouldn't.

A sharp gasp reaches her ears. "Oh my god!" So much horror in so few words.

"Emma?" Another voice, full of trepidation and concern.

Emma raises her head. Her parents are some few feet away and gaze at the carnage of what Emma has done as though she's done it to them. Mary Margaret is crying.

"Emma?" Regina says again.

Of course it's Regina. Emma fixes her eyes on the other woman, the mother of her son, and it strikes her how beautiful Regina is. Her eyes are expressive under their dark brows and tell the stories that her expressions try to hide. How has Emma ever looked at the other woman and believed her to be cold? The truth of her is right there, so close to the surface that it's impossible not to see.

Emma's chest cracks as a dry sob scratches its way out of her throat. Regina's not at all afraid of her; her eyes don't stray for one moment to the wreckage around them, and oh, Emma _loves_ her. She shouldn't and it's useless – it won't matter, soon – but she does.

She loves Regina Mills, and if she was less than what she's become, or more than she's been, she'd do something about it.

Instead, Emma sobs. "You have to take it out," she begs. "I tried, 'Gina, tried so hard and …" her breath hitches in her throat and she eyes the blackened animal corpses around her, "What have I done?"

Footsteps crash through the underbrush and Emma thinks that it's her parents, who have appeared in the space next to Regina and are helping her to stand, and then Henry and Robin and Hook are there.

"Swan!" Hook exclaims, and starts forward.

"No!" Emma yells. She looks past Hook to Henry, and his face … she'll never forget his face. "Stay back. I don't … I don't want to hurt you."

But Henry isn't afraid for the reasons she thinks, and her gangly, headstrong son promptly leaps over fallen logs and rushes to her side despite her warning.

"Mom, you're bleeding," he presses in concern.

She shouldn't be. Confused, Emma glances down at herself: the skin of the knuckles on both of her hands has been ripped away and the blood that cakes her hands isn't all hers, but enough of it is; her clothes are ruined; her wrist is broken. She furrows her brow and a memory floats down to her as if it happened years ago: she can't stop killing things, incinerating trees and animals, but she's trying.

She had tried, and she'd broken her wrist by punching through a tree, and her efforts to stop were futile.

Emma has no idea that she's said all of this – babbled it in half coherent sentences around shuddering breaths – until she lifts her eyes and sees the way Regina is looking at her.

Emma is going crazy, and the world is ending, and she'll lose it for good if Regina fears – or worse, pities – her for one second.

But Regina's lips pull up into that haughty sneer that Emma has memorized, because it's been directed at her too many times to count, and she fixes all of the outward damage to Emma's body with a wave of one hand.

"Really, Miss Swan," Regina says disdainfully. "Your incompetence knows no bounds. Have I taught you nothing? Hurting yourself gets you nowhere."

Everyone else is mortified, shocked, and they should be – but Emma barks out a laugh. She might be losing her mind, or dying, but she has a PhD in gallows humor.

The message on the surface isn't the one that Emma hears anyway; no, Regina's words say one thing, but they mean something very different. _It's okay_ , they say, _I understand. I've done worse_. And really, Emma might love Hook but it's not the way that she loves Regina, and that truth has never been clearer than it is right now.

"Still learning," the blonde gasps out, and collapses into the mayor's arms.

When she comes to, Emma apologizes and sends Hook away for good.

It could have been good, but it'll never be like it is with Regina, and frankly Emma Swan doesn't have enough left in her to waste the energy on anything less.

* * *

 

No one talks about that morning in the forest.

They redouble their efforts to find the Sorcerer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can honestly say that I had no idea that this story would go this way. I mean, I thought I knew where it was going and then I started writing and the plot just sort of sat up, looked at me and said, "nope, we're doing it this way". So ... yeah.


	3. Chapter 3

Regina finds out from Henry.

"Can we get a boat?" he asks one day.

Regina raises her head and stares at her son where he's lounging with both legs over the arm of the couch in her mayoral office. He's reading a magazine.

"A what?"

"A boat," Henry repeats. "Like a sailboat. Or a yacht."

The mayor doesn't know what to say to that. Henry has asked for a lot of things in his life, but this is new.

"Why do you want a boat?" she manages to ask.

Henry shrugs and drops his magazine. He scrambles into a seated position and hangs both of his arms over the back of the couch so that he can pillow his chin there. His mother doesn't fail to notice that his dirty shoes are leaving pieces of dirt on the upholstery.

"I like boats, and now that Hook is gone there's …"

"What do you mean, Hook is gone?" Regina interrupts. "Gone where?"

Henry shrugs again and Regina breathes deeply. That year of Terrible Two's had nearly done her in and where once she'd been proud of the simple act of making it through, she's now certain that she only survived so that she could die at the hand of this newly found, and slowly worsening, teenage apathy.

She'll never use her magic on Henry unless it's to save him, but if she did it would be some kind of spell to keep those damn shoulders from ever shrugging at her again.

"Did Emma go with him?" And there it is, the vulnerable underside of her previous question, because she only cares about the filthy pirate in so far as Emma Swan is concerned.

"No," Henry answers. He furrows his brows as though Regina is crazy for thinking such a thing. "And his goodbye felt pretty final, so I thought, with him gone, we should get a boat."

Well, Regina just has to take a minute to marvel at the wonders of teen logic then, because _really._

"When did he leave?"

"A few days ago."

Regina's next question is poised on her lips and it's all about how Henry's other mother is handling this development, but it's silenced as the door to Regina's office swings open and reveals the blonde woman herself.

"Root beer," Emma announces. "Hey, kid." She smiles at Henry as she hands him one of three glass bottles and then ruffles his hair with her free hand. "What's up?"

"I was just telling mom we should buy a boat," Henry explains.

"A boat," Emma repeats.

"A sailboat, or maybe a yacht. Yachts have more room. Don't they?"

Emma is trying to swallow a smile as she sets the remaining two bottles down in front of Regina and produces a bottle opener with a flourish.

"No idea," Emma says. She pops the tops on their bottles and then tosses the opener to Henry, who catches it easily. "But it doesn't matter. I'll just enchant it for you. You know, that whole bigger on the inside deal. Maybe I'll even enchant it to sail for you."

She takes a swig of root beer and when the bottle falls from her lips she's outright grinning at Regina.

"What do you say, Madame Mayor? Should we get our kid a boat?"

"Absolutely not." Regina manages to lodge the protest through a haze of mild surprise. Emma seems fine. Henry's talk of boats hasn't perturbed her in the least, and there's something teasing in the curve of her lips as she smiles. "He's not even old enough to drive."

"I won't need to 'drive it' at all if Mom enchants it for me."

"Which she won't be doing," Regina says firmly. She glares at the sheriff without any real heat and then gives her a quick once over. "No grilled cheese?"

"Too close to dinner," and Emma shrugs.

"You too with the shrugging?" Regina snaps. "It's bad enough Henry does it!"

"I'll never shrug again if you let me have a boat," Henry supplies hurriedly.

Regina stares at him.

"Mom won't either, will you?" He raises his eyes to Emma for support.

"No promises there, kid. How about if I get you the boat, and Regina gets you a car? When you're old enough, of course."

Emma's grin is playful and if there's a bit of a challenge around the lines of her mouth that makes Regina's heart stutter a bit, well, no one needs to know. This is the part of Emma as the Dark One that she can't help but find a little too alluring.

(Sometimes Regina has to focus on this version of Emma, where she's just north of dangerous and the shadows around her eyes are beckoning rather than repelling, because it's too easy to think of Emma as she'd been that morning in the woods – and that memory might drive Regina to set the world on fire to save her … Emma).

"Don't you have somewhere to be, Miss Swan?"

"Boat shopping, apparently."

"Buy our son a boat and I will send that yellow death machine of yours into the pit of a volcano," Regina purrs menacingly.

"You can try," Emma retorts. She braces her hands on the edge of Regina's desk as she does so and leans forward onto the them, bringing them closer.

"Oh, I don't try, Miss Swan. I succeed."

These exchanges happen more frequently now, and they're an endless wealth of fascination for Henry. They're such an interesting mixture of how his mothers were in the past, and how they are now. Emma is never like this around anyone but his brunette mother. The last time his mothers had revealed the darker side of their senses of humor Henry had been convinced the whole town was about to spontaneously combust.

Regina alone had not shrank back in fear. She'd fired off a snarky retort with her telltale flippancy, and everyone had swallowed their discomfort and moved on.

Emma hasn't said anything like that since; at least, not to anyone but Regina. The two of them have made it some kind of game, Henry thinks, a pull of opposites that creates enough challenge to be exciting without being threatening.

While that's certainly true, there's another aspect of it that Henry can't grasp. It's a game, yes, a few rounds of competitive one-up-ness, but it's also a reminder (and a reassurance). Regina knows how hard Emma works to keep the evidence of her darkness from her loved ones; she also knows the frustration that hiding such a thing can create, and that said frustration needs some kind of an outlet to keep it from exploding. So she engages in these verbal sparring matches with Emma and though their words sometimes trip into darker territory – they've even inflicted real wounds once or twice – the message behind them is all warmth.

_I'm not afraid of you_ , Regina's snarky words say. _You don't have to hide from me_.

Emma always gets the message.

Robin strolls into the office then. He falters midstride, obviously taken aback to find that Regina's not alone. Emma straightens up immediately. Her expression closes off, and though she doesn't give any outward indication of displeasure Regina reads the tension that appears in her shoulders as if it's a neon sign.

Robin eyes Emma warily and then musters up a smile.

This is how it's been since … well, for a while.

"Robin," Regina says brightly. She pulls herself to her feet behind the desk and ignores the way her smile feels a little less easy than it had a moment ago. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd take you to dinner," Robin answers. He approaches her desk and the closer he gets, the further Emma retreats. "Henry mentioned earlier that he was going to Emma's."

"I am," Henry affirms quickly. He hates the way Emma holds herself whenever Robin is around now, like she's uncomfortable to the point of being in pain.

The complete shutdown is a dizzying one-eighty from the version of his mom he'd just witnessed with his mother moments ago. This distant Emma is wrong. This isn't who she is; this is public Emma, this is Sheriff Swan, and the Savior, and the Dark One when she should be all of them at once; the way she is when it's just the three of them, Emma, and Henry, and Regina.

"We'll get out of your hair," Emma ventures by way of excuse. Her tone is cold but she holds out an arm for Henry, and he bounds off the couch and slips under it easily.

Regina doesn't like this version of Emma either but she doesn't know what to do – knows there's not much she can do – so she calls after them instead. She can't bring herself to adopt the same challenging tone she uses when it's just her and Emma, but she draws on her Mayor persona and hopes it's enough.

"No grilled cheese for dinner, Miss Swan."

The attempt reaches through Emma's walls – _I know who you are_ – and draws out a response.

Emma pauses them in the doorway. She grins at Henry and then glances at the other woman over her shoulder. "Who said anything about dinner? We're going boat shopping."

"A volcano, Miss Swan," Regina threatens.

Emma and Henry have turned the corner out of the office and Regina hears Emma say, loud enough to make sure she's heard, "I'm thinking a sailboat."

Too late does Regina realize that she didn't get to ask Emma about Hook's departure.

* * *

 

Emma actually does lead them down to the pier. Henry practically skips in excitement.

"I can really have a boat?"

Emma turns surprised eyes on him. "You were serious about that? I thought you were just giving your mom a hard time."

Henry shakes his head. "I really want a boat."

"Why? Where would you take it?"

He thinks about this and then shrugs. The movement makes Emma grin because she knows how it would irritate Regina to see it.

"Nowhere. I don't want it to leave, really. Sometimes I just like the way the waves rock the boat."

Henry doesn't mention that it could be a safe place for them, and a place where bad memories wouldn't have to be erased to make room for new, happier ones. His life up to date has made Henry a bit of a hoarder; where others collect magic, or trinkets, or even powerful pieces of information, Henry prefers to collect places. They're safe havens, really, and they're one thing he'll never have enough of.

They're not all for him, though. Sometimes they're for his mother, and sometimes they're for his mom, and sometimes they're for anyone and everyone. Lately – since the moment one of his moms threw herself into the darkness for the other, and that terrible morning in the forest – Henry has been craving a safe haven for just the three of them.

He wants a space where Emma can be free of the walls he knows she imposes on herself; a place where acceptance and support is more than just subtext, and their warm moments are harder to interrupt. Somewhere that Henry and his mother can help his mom bear this larger than life burden she's now responsible for.

Some of this must show on Henry's face, because his birth mother studies him closely for long moments. Her eyes sweep over him, assessing, seeking; she tips her head minutely to the side and then nods.

"Okay," she says quietly.

"What?"

She shucks her chin toward the harbor and there it is: a boat a little smaller than Hook's was, the hull gleaming white where it stretches out of the water. There's hardly a breeze but the sails are unfurled and stand proudly in the pale purple of twilight.

Henry gapes. Then he lets out a loud, exhilarated whoop and throws his arms around Emma in an ecstatic (and rather tight) hug. His laughter draws a chuckle out of her.

"Seriously?" he crows.

"Seriously," Emma affirms. "What good is having all of this magic if I can't use it to make the people I love happy?" She beams at her son and pushes a hand through his hair. "I was only joking about enchanting it to sail, though," Emma cautions quickly. "If you want it to sail then we'll have to put in the work."

"Deal." Henry pulls out his cell phone, snaps a picture, and then sends it to his mother with a hasty text that uses a few too many exclamation points. "Can we go check it out?" he asks when he's done.

"Sure."

Emma puts an arm around Henry's shoulders again and moves them to the boat with little more than a thought. She realizes as soon as they're standing below the sails that it's too large of a craft for two people to sail; if Henry wants this thing to move, Regina will have to learn as well (or reevaluate her "no enchantment" bias).

Henry moves excitedly from one spot to another as he travels the length of the boat. Everything is new, and clean, and white.

He stops in front of Emma when a question pops into his mind. "Are a sailboat and a yacht the same thing?"

Emma opens her mouth to answer and then slams it shut again. Her eyebrows draw down as she considers the question.

"I have no idea."

Henry shrugs again – Emma smiles – and continues to explore.

They move down into the living quarters together. There's enough room for six people, a small kitchen and dining area, and a shower and bathroom. Emma had known exactly what she was conjuring when she pulled the ship into existence, but she hadn't imagined it clearly enough to know that this was what she would find. Regina would undoubtedly scold her for that if she were here. Still, Emma thinks she's done a commendable job.

"It's practically an apartment," Henry muses in wonderment.

"What should we name it?" Emma asks.

"Hmm, I don't know."

"How about 'The Death of Emma Swan'," a new voice suggests.

Emma and Henry turn to find Regina standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"It does have a certain ring to it," Emma goads. "Bit long, though."

Henry's initial happiness at seeing his mother fades when he remembers that she's supposed to be on a date with Robin. He's not feeling as warm toward the thief as he once had, and the last thing Henry wants is that man on his family's boat. This is supposed to be a safe haven for them (for Emma).

"Where's Robin?" Henry questions. "You didn't bring him, did you?"

His voice is unexpectedly sharp, and Emma and Regina both fix their eyes on him.

"No," Regina says slowly, "I didn't." She doesn't elaborate.

Regina casts her eyes around the cabin. She can't find fault in the pristine surfaces and clearly unused newness of it all. It's quite nice, actually.

Still. "A boat, Miss Swan?"

"Oh, that reminds me," Henry jumps in. "Are a sailboat and a yacht the same thing?"

Regina doesn't answer. "Henry, would excuse us for a moment?"

Henry deflates on a sigh. His mother might not be all together angry, but it's clear she doesn't approve, and it's hard to hold on to his excitement in the face of her displeasure. He trudges toward the stairs and stops at his mother's side. He glances back at his mom, who looks sad, and feels a surge of protectiveness.

"Don't yell at her, okay?" He keeps his voice soft.

His mother smiles kindly and squeezes his arm. "I won't."

Emma doesn't move from her spot on the other side of the cabin. She watches Henry's feet until they're out of sight and then focuses on Regina. She doesn't speak.

"You gave our son a boat," Regina starts after a protracted silence. She keeps her tone neutral. "Do you think that wise?"

Emma huffs and shuffles her feet. She seems so tired all the time now, as if she's threadbare and it's all she can do to keep herself from being worn through. This is the cost of Emma's constant oppression of herself, Regina thinks, the logical outcome of hiding those parts of herself that frighten people. The exhaustion is always lurking in the shadows behind her eyes now and Emma somehow succeeds in hiding it from everyone except Regina.

"Despite what you think, Regina, I'm not an idiot. I told him it wouldn't move unless we put in the work."

Regina starts to make a retort, to say that she knew the whole "enchant it to sail" thing was just a jab at her, but Emma hurries on.

"I asked him what he'd do with a boat, and you know what he said? That he just liked the way it rocked with the waves. You should have seen his face, Regina. I don't know why it's so important to him, but it is."

Emma is agitated now. Henry's request for a boat had seemed silly at first, but the way he'd looked at her when she asked him why … maybe it's just a whim, but it's a meaningful one. Something in her son's face had resounded almost painfully in her, and so she'd given it to him.

She starts to pace in the few feet of space that the cabin provides. She had turned on the lights when she had first followed Henry down, and she doesn't notice that they've started to flicker in response to her growing emotional upheaval.

"Henry's been through so much; I've put him through so much. He's always believed in me, believed that I was the savior and that I could give everyone their happy endings."

She's working herself into a frenzy now. Her hands are cartwheeling through the air as her speech grows in speed and desperation. Regina takes a step forward, and another, until she's close enough to touch Emma.

"And I tried, you know? I really tried to do that for everyone – for you – and now I'm this thing, this person who is stuck somewhere between hero and villain and everyone looks at me like I'm a bomb just waiting to go off, and I am, and I thought … I thought maybe Henry wanted this boat so that he'd have somewhere to go where he didn't have to be ashamed of me."

Regina's heart aches where it flutters in her chest, but Emma's confession makes her angry. "Emma," she grinds out, snatching one of Emma's hands out of the air to clasp in hers. "No one is ashamed of you, least of all Henry."

"I never wanted this power, Regina. But if I have it, why not use it to make the people I love happy?"

_While I can_ , she thinks but doesn't say.

Regina knows the truth of herself then. She feels the warmth in her chest and the way her heart expands with every beat, the way it pushes out against its seams as she acknowledges everything that she and Emma have been through. It's not new and it's not wrong, but it's out of place because Robin is supposed to be her True Love. Robin is supposed to be her destiny, but she's the reason Emma ended up alone in this world twenty-eight years ago, and she's the one that adopted the Savior's son, and she's the one Emma chose to save.

What use has she for destiny if it's not what brought Henry to her, and him to Emma, and Emma to them? Emma; the person who has her back, and irritates her, and never takes her spiky demeanor to heart; Emma, the person who cares about Regina's happiness enough to forfeit her own so that she might keep it.

Emma, who has willingly taken this darkness upon herself for Regina, and even now does her best to keep everyone from seeing the damage.

What good is True Love if it's less than Emma Swan?

Regina does what she does best in the face of such personal realization then: she deflects.

"An admirable desire. Except that once again, Miss Swan, your incompetence rears its ugly head." Her tone is that low, irritated one that Emma can't keep herself from responding to. Regina instinctively knows how to toe that line between dangerous and playful.

"Incompetence?" Emma breathes. The lights have stopped flickering and Regina can tell that she's already drawing her out by the way Emma's shoulders relax and drop.

Fools would claim that Regina does this to make a target of herself, as if Emma were a weapon and Regina is giving her something to aim at. Maybe it is – maybe it's the truest show of trust for them, each putting themselves in the other's crosshairs and knowing that they'll be safe there – but it's never felt as simple as that.

What Emma and Regina share is so much more than can be understood by someone on the outside looking in, and yet it's less than it could be. (Less than it should be, Regina refuses to think).

"Two people can't possibly sail this ship." Regina fears she's taken too long to reply.

But no, as always, Emma is too stubborn not to wait for her. "Then I guess it's a …"

Emma disappears midsentence in a cloud of white-gold smoke.


	4. Chapter 4

Emma blinks. She's no longer on the boat, but in the town square; not far from Granny's. A man she's never seen before is standing in the middle of the street.

She feels a laugh bubble up in her chest and try to climb out of her throat. She's beginning to develop a complex about this spot in town. Why does everything always seem to happen here?

The cloying fog of hate that swells inside her scalds Emma's insides. She has dreamt of this man, but this rage isn't hers, it can't be; this is that churning sea of darkness that claws at her now. This is that strange, terrifying new part of her wreaking havoc on her control as it never has before.

Emma and the newcomer stare at each other with wordless gazes that burn. He looks middle aged, innocuous, but there's a timelessness about him that makes Emma want to pull him to pieces with her bare hands. She hates it; she hates him.

There's so much hate in her now that it's hard to remember if there was ever a time when she was at peace.

"Who the hell are you?" Emma finally demands.

Regina and Henry puff into being somewhere behind her. Emma thinks that Regina might be speaking, but she doesn't care. The evil within her won't let her care, not now, not when the man is standing in the middle of the street just as she's dreamt that he would.

The man doesn't look away from Emma. "You are … more than I expected." His voice is rich and echoes inside her mind as though it's chasing every piece of her out.

The part of Emma that isn't Emma at all knows the man's name. That part of her reaches across the ages and pulls the word out of the arms of the Earth itself, drags it through every realm that's ever carried the echo of its sound and unleashes it.

"Merlin." She's never heard a sound like that issue from her throat before, pregnant with hate and scorn and promises to _destroy_.

The Sorcerer moves leisurely toward her and his expression is benevolent, and at her core Emma knows that this is the end.

"You have shown remarkable courage, Emma Swan," Merlin says kindly. He's talking to her as though she's much farther away than the scant few feet that separate them now.

Belatedly Emma understands that it's because she is much farther away. Merlin is speaking to her; to the version of herself that has fought ceaselessly to contain the evil she's taken on, and yet loses more ground every day; to the parts of her that exist outside the Dark One.

"I regret that I was not able to arrive sooner."

_I regret that I cannot save you_ , Emma hears.

Then Regina, vibrant, snarky Regina is there. Her face is contorted into a sneer and her magenta lips are dripping threats and, oh. Emma has been terrible at showing it, hasn't been at liberty to dare to want the things that she knows she does, but _oh, she loves this woman_ , and Regina is stunning. So much ferocity in such a hidden, tender heart, and Emma's own heart is stunned into nearly stopping at the realization that this protectiveness is for her.

Regina Mills, the woman who loves so deeply that she would tear the world asunder for it.

"I'm sorry that it has come to this." Merlin brandishes the dagger with Emma's name on it like it's a paltry toy. She doesn't care to wonder how he has it.

_Everything ends_ , Emma thinks. She has just enough presence of mind to command, "Run, Regina. Take Henry and run as far from me as you can."

All the threads that make up Emma Swan unravel, until she's nothing but the rage of a lifetime of pain; it's hers, but it's so much more than that, much more than her. Everything that she has been fighting against consumes her, elevating her darkest shadows and crushing everything else, and she lunges at Merlin in a thunderclap of dark magic.

They rip the town apart. There's nothing she can do to stop it. Emma fights the darkness inwardly and Merlin outwardly; a war being raged on two battlefields, and she is losing both. This is that night in the forest all over again.

She can feel the blood where it drips down her cheek and pools in the hollow of her throat, but she's more concerned with the liquid tendrils of dark magic that writhe around her forearms as she does battle. This is a different kind of blood; she's stretched too thin and there isn't enough of her to contain so much darkness, so it bleeds out of her faster than she can spend it.

There's a tiny flame in her soul that flickers in the darkness; it sputters with every breath, but Emma clings to its light. _This is who am I_ , she recites to herself. _This is love, and family, and happiness; this is me._

Emma sees the end before it comes. She feels it. Her body is broken, has been broken for much longer than she's realized, and the only thing propelling her forward is the awful monster tethered to her soul.

Merlin is there, right in front of her and they're not in the same spot they started in but they're on the main street again and _why does everything always happen here?_ And Emma is bleeding away, but that intrepid little flame burns just bright enough here at the end to give her momentary control. She stops and flicks her gaze over her home, and up to the clock tower. Regina will rebuild it; she will undo all of the damage they've caused with a wave of her hand, and Emma's home will look like home once more.

She picks up on movement behind Merlin's shoulder, and there they are. Regina, and Henry, and her parents, and people she has called friends. The whirlwind of hate spins wildly in her breast, and Emma knows the Dark One as it knows her. She remembers how it had tried to take Regina and she can feel it as it prepares to flee and make for the other woman.

She'd stopped this darkness from taking Regina once, and she'll do it again.

For the first time since Merlin spoke to her, Emma really looks at him. This is the end, but there is compassion in his gaze.

"I'm so tired," Emma whispers brokenly. She knows that he'll hear, and understand, just as Regina does.

"Yes, child."

There's no alternative. This will play out exactly as it needs to, exactly as it is destined to, but Emma can still make a choice. Regina had said something once about them being driven by destiny and maybe that's true, but she has free will also.

There's always a choice, and this is Emma's.

"Do it. Do it now."

Merlin steps forward, and the blade with Emma's name on it slides into her sternum and between her ribs, and somehow she finds it in her to cry.

The night sky ignites with a solid column of magic that splits the air. The edges are black and twist in on themselves, undulating as they're sucked down into the blade, and Emma acknowledges that this is the Dark One. She doesn't care about that part, though, because with her head thrown back she can see the core of the pillar, and it's a perfect, blinding white. Whatever she is, whatever she became, Emma has managed to hold on 'til the end. She hopes they'll remember that, those people that she loves. She hopes that they'll see past those black edges to the heart of her, pure and whole once more.

_Light shines brighter in the darkness, Emma_ , Regina's voice whispers from a lifetime away.

The outpouring of magic ends abruptly. Emma lurches forward with the loss of it and feels the scrape-slide of the dagger on bone as Merlin withdraws it.

"It is done."

Someone is screaming. The world tilts around Emma, but she squints and wills it to right itself for just a little longer.

Her family is running to her.

Emma manages a single shuffling, faltering step forward, and then she collapses.

"Emma!"

"Mom!"

Something is pulling her under and honestly, Emma's so damn sick of being jerked around and weighed down and she's going to take another minute to say goodbye, damn it.

They're all there, and everyone is crying, and Emma grates out words first. They're brittle and fall like dust into the air between them, but they're heard. "It's gone," she assures them. "The Dark One … will never hurt anyone again."

_I am the child of True Love, the Savior, the mother of an Author; I am myself again._

"Oh, Emma," Mary Margaret sobs.

"We tried," David tells her, and he's sobbing as well. "We tried to fight him off, Emma, to get to you, but he put up some kind of barrier and we …"

"Good." Her voice is mostly air now. "I wanted you … safe."

There's so much more she wants to tell them; so many things she needs them to understand, but it's hard to breathe and she's been tired for so long. Emma lifts her hand and the effort it takes to do so is staggering; every bone in her arm feels like it's broken. But lift her hand she does, and she wraps her fingers as tightly as she can around Henry's.

There's so much blood, streaks of it everywhere, and it can't all be hers, can it?

"Love you, kid. Thank you … for bringing me home." She closes her eyes.

"I love you too, mom," Henry answers. He sounds young again, so young and frightened and Emma remembers the tiny slip of a boy who'd shown up on her doorstep in Boston.

"We've had so many lifetimes." She doesn't mean to say the words aloud, but they trip past her lips anyway. "So … much together …"

"Emma," and this time it's Regina, the mother of her son, and Emma finds it in herself to open her eyes again.

"Take the kid sailing," Emma whispers. She can't lift her hand anymore, but it must flutter and signal what she wants anyway because Henry lets it go and Regina pulls it into both of hers. "I love you."

Someone gasps, or they all do, or maybe she does.

"I never told you, 'Gina, and I … rarely told the rest of you, but … I always felt it. I …"

Emma Swan takes her last breath, and doesn't know that Regina has ripped her heart from her chest with little finesse but immense care.

She doesn't hear as they call out for her; she doesn't hear when Regina starts to laugh brokenly through heaving sobs, because …

_What should we name it?_

_How about 'The Death of Emma Swan'?_

… and now Emma isn't breathing and Regina never got to tell her that she's just given their son a boat – their son, who was afraid of water until he was five years old.

So Regina holds Emma's heart in her hands and laughs, and laughs, and then she tears the world asunder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To quote a line from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: DON'T. PANIC.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the resolution of most of this story. There's one chapter left, which is the epilogue. Thank you for all of the comments and kudos - I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

The heart in Regina's hands is dying. The red is bright – there's a black spot somewhere in the middle, but the red is pure and luminescent around it – but it beats too slowly.

"Save her!" Regina screams.

She folds Emma's heart against her chest and sincerely wishes for the first time that she could put it next to hers, that the human body was strong enough to hold two hearts. It's not, so she cradles it against herself as she runs at Merlin, heedless of everything but the Sorcerer and the dying thing in her hands.

"Bring her back!" Regina demands. She has no idea that she's crying.

"I can't." Merlin's words have the ring of finality, and she dismisses them by heaving a fireball at the man; it bounces off an invisible force field and evaporates.

It's Mary Margaret that gets the next words in. "But she fought! She fought so hard …"

They are converging on this Sorcerer, Mary Margaret and Regina and David, united. Henry remains next to his Emma's body.

"She did, and bravely," Merlin agrees.

"Isn't that worth something?" David pleads.

"Gold is still alive!" Regina sputters over him. "The Apprentice saved him, but you can't save Emma?"

"She fought." Merlin's shoulders don't move but there's a shrug in his voice, and Regina bites out a laugh and starts to tremble.

"What does that mean?"

There are slashes in Merlin's clothes and wounds that disappear under Regina's eyes as he heals them, but the mayor sees them and feels a surge of triumph because Emma fought, and right now Regina wants to kill this Sorcerer. Every wound on him is justified.

Then she remembers that Emma fought, but this wasn't her war; her war was silent and lasted so much longer than it should have, so much longer than they knew, and Regina's heart crumbles under the idea that it was her fault.

_We don't have to fix her because there's nothing wrong with her._

Emma had done all of this because of her, for her, and she'd driven the other woman to her doom without knowing it.

"No one can fight the grip of the Dark One," Merlin explains, and he looks at them as though this is something they should have known from birth.

"But the Dark One is immortal!" Mary Margaret explodes. Regina is so proud of the rage in her voice, the black expression on her face, even though she knows she shouldn't be; that Emma would hate it. "Gold lived for hundreds of years before his heart gave out!"

"He didn't fight." Merlin discards the stylized dagger that is now nameless in the folds of his robes.

"But Emma did," David breathes.

This whole conversation has gone round in circles and they're saying the same things as if they have different meanings, and Regina doesn't understand a single one of them but she is going to _kill_ someone if it doesn't stop.

"What the hell does that mean?" she shrieks. The heart pressed to her breast is nearly still now, and she can't do this anymore, she can't stand one more minute of this world where Emma Swan is dead.

"She would have lived much longer, had she not hurried the process by resisting. Every soul has its limits, even the Savior's, and that is a battle that no one could have won." Merlin's face is so kind, so benign and knowing that it feels as though Regina is being flayed alive when he looks at her. "She loved you. It's why she took on the darkness, and what kept her going."

He looks at them all, and Regina can feel the presence of the townspeople behind her. She can hear some of them murmuring Emma's name. If she looks at any of them or hears a single iteration of, "What do we do now?" Emma's heart won't be the only one she rips out.

"Be proud," Merlin tells them. "Emma Swan was a hero. Her sacrifice will not be forgotten."

Regina is falling apart. That word, that hated, horrible word – hero – is tearing her to pieces, because of course Emma was a hero, and Regina hates her for it. Emma resisted the darkness; she resisted because that's who she is, and they might have had years together, if only that stubborn, incompetent idiot had _given in_.

How long has it been since the heart in her hand last thumped?

Regina finds it hard to think, to process what's happening – has happened; all she knows is that she's in pain, so much pain, and it's sweeping over her like ocean waves at high tide. She's full to bursting with it, and it's all she can do to choke it back and push down the swell of magic that wants to break free.

The mayor who was once an Evil Queen pulls the heart away from her chest and raises it to her eyes. She might crush it; she should crush it, and then maybe hers, and then maybe someone else's.

Emma's heart thumps.

"Damn you, Emma Swan!" The words are ripped out of her, and they carve wounds as they go. She screams them into Emma's heart as though they matter, as though Emma can hear them. Then she raises her eyes to Merlin. "Bring her back, because I'm going to kill her. You hear me, Swan? You've ruined my life!"

The heart in her hands beats again, and it shouldn't; shouldn't, but does, and Regina recognizes the zealous flush that sweeps through her then. She understands the desperate fire burning along her nerve endings: the last ditch effort of someone who can't find it in them to accept the reality they're seeing.

"Heal her," Regina commands. Her eyes are narrowed and full of that fire as they take in Merlin in all of his understated finery.

"I can't," he repeats.

"Her body," Regina sneers. "Heal her body, you fool."

"Regina, what …" Mary Margaret starts.

"Not now. Do it, Sorcerer."

"Can't you do it?" David queries.

"Those aren't just any wounds," Regina grinds out. "Greater magic than mine inflicted them, and I could heal them on the surface, but it would take years for them to heal completely."

"Please," comes the plaintive plea from behind them.

Regina turns around, and what a mistake that is. Henry has laid his head against Emma's unmoving chest, and he might have a streak of her blood on his forehead, and he's trained his eyes on Merlin. His cheeks are wet.

Regina can recreate her original curse. She can make the whole town forget everything that's happened in the last four years, and she will if the only alternative is this reality. She will doom them all to a lifetime of vague but lasting unhappiness if it means they don't have to live with this pain; if it means Henry won't have to remember what it's like to lay his head on his other mother's chest and hear silence where life should be.

Only … _take him sailing_ , Emma had said, and she can't do that – won't know why it's so important that she does – if she makes them all forget. And she could never truly forget Emma Swan, could never convince her heart to stop seeking out that challenge that only Emma can provide, so it's not worth trying.

Regina doesn't want to erase or forget Emma; she wants to keep her from now until the end of the time, through all of the lifetimes they might share. Emma has to be here to fight with her, and share questionable food choices with their son.

"Her body is whole," Merlin says, and Regina startles. "I can do no more."

"But I can."

_Thump, thump_. Regina strides over to Emma's prone body. The blood is gone and her hair shines like yellow silk in the moonlight and what's left of the streetlights. She doesn't look at Emma's heart as she kneels down and presses it back into her chest.

Henry moves back enough to allow Regina to lean forward. She raises bare hands and places them against cooling cheeks, her eyes flicking over Emma's face as she does so.

"Even a volcano didn't want your bug," Regina whispers as she presses a kiss to Emma's forehead. "Yellow is really such a terrible color."

She closes her eyes, and her lips close over Emma's thinner ones. Regina stays like that for long moments, her hands on Emma's face and her lips pressed over hers, and then she pulls back enough to take a breath. She can't bring herself to open her eyes again as she breathes into the space between their mouths.

"I love you."

Regina Mills has never loved anyone like she's loved Emma Swan. She's wanted to kill her, to throw her against the nearest hard surface and have her way with her, and fold her into warm blankets and forget that the world exists for a while. Regina loves Robin, yes, but it feels so easy compared to this; there's no challenge there for her. They love each other because they're supposed to.

But Emma … Regina loves Emma because she can't stand her, because she hates the way Emma tries when she should give up, and the way she'll give anyone who asks a second chance; she loves her because their relationship has been difficult, and messy, and impossible.

Regina loves her because she chooses to.

There's a breath then, a tiny puff of air really, and Regina chokes off a sob and opens her eyes to find herself staring into Emma's clear green ones.

"Madame Mayor." Emma's voice is sandpaper and gravel, hoarse as though she's been screaming. "Kissing a woman while she's dead? Pervert."

Regina can't cry, and she can't laugh, because Emma's hands are brushing over her ears and tangling in her hair as she swallows any response with her lips. Kissing Emma is like spiraling headlong toward the ground and then spreading her wings the moment before impact. They cling together and Regina doesn't know if she's falling apart or being made anew, but she'll gladly endure either at the hands of the woman she loves.

Emma lets go first. Regina rears back and braces herself with one hand over Emma's increasingly strong heartbeat.

"If you ever again think for one minute that that is an acceptable declaration of love, Miss Swan, I will incinerate that horrid excuse for a car with you in it."

And Emma, beautiful, idiotic Emma with her valor and damaged, perfect heart, smiles up at her. "You could try."

Regina laughs in the face of her challenge and manages one more crushing kiss before standing and relinquishing her to her crying family.

She sweeps a hand over her skirt to smooth away the wrinkles and glares at Merlin, who hasn't moved and hasn't left.

"Why didn't you just save us time and tell me?" she grouses.

The Sorcerer smiles for the first time, the movement small and fleeting, and for the moment Regina doesn't want to kill him.

"It's not something you can be told, and I was not certain it would work. The Savior has endured much at the hands of such evil."

Regina looks to Emma. Henry has yet to let go of her, and Mary Margaret and David alternate between sobbing in each other's arms and sobbing against their daughter.

"Will she be all right?"

"She has borne a great burden. I can do no more than I have already. She is in your hands now, and you must help her through whatever shadows linger."

Regina has never been afraid of the darkness, but she can face it now with a certainty that she didn't have before: it can be faced, and embraced, and pushed aside.

"Was it always going to end this way?" She doesn't know she's going to ask the question until it slips out, but she manages to tear her eyes from Emma and fix them on Merlin.

She doesn't know what ending she's talking about, or why she thinks Merlin knows the answer, but it feels important that she asks.

Merlin studies Emma where she sits on the ground. She's sitting up now and she keeps trying to stand, but Henry and her parents won't let her go long enough to do so; the townspeople are approaching with hurried exclamations and wary consternation, but they smile at Emma as they do so.

"I see no endings here," and Merlin disappears.

Regina scoffs. She's exhausted and there's so much to be dealt with, for herself and everyone else, and there's a massive headache building behind her eyes; but Emma is alive and she chooses that moment to look up and meet Regina's gaze. The blonde smiles and it's shaky, but bright, and Regina's lips pull up into a smile of their own accord.

"Well," she says haughtily, "That man is certainly full of himself." She flicks her hair over her shoulder disdainfully.

Emma huffs but Mary Margaret … well, Mary Margaret starts to laugh, and the sound is thick with unshed tears and she's barely keeping herself on this side of a breakdown, but she does the unthinkable and dashes over to wrap Regina in a hug.

Everyone is stunned into silence, but it doesn't last long; soon enough Henry is attaching himself to her side, and then Emma is on her other side, and David stands behind Mary Margaret and stretches his arms around all of them.

"Oh, good. We're hugging." Regina injects her voice with all the acerbity she can muster, but there's no hiding the sheen of tears in her eyes, or the lone one that traces a path down her cheek.

She can just see Robin over David's shoulder and though she knows that she has probably hurt him, Regina can't fully regret it because Emma is alive and warm against her side.

_Tomorrow_ , she tells herself. _I'll deal with everything tomorrow_.

Right now she's being hugged as she never has been, with too many arms and too much history and no real understanding of how she ever made it to this moment, and she was right: it is _so good_.


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this wasn't going to be this fluffy, but I felt like these characters needed a little lightness (and I certainly wanted it for them). So, fluff it is!

Regina stares out over the water at the boat that sways gently in the harbor. Today the hull is a deep red, and one sail is yellow, and the other is purple; it's loud and maybe garish, but she doesn't hate it as much as she claims. She can't hate it when it's a running battle between her and Emma, a case of publicly displayed frivolity that Regina swears she will not engage in again – until the next time Emma makes it a hideous color, and she simply has to change it.

Regina puts a hand on the railing that runs the length of the pier. Emma has the frustrating ability to draw Regina out whether she wants to be or not; of eliciting a sense of safety in her that she hasn't felt since the blissful ignorance of childhood. The blonde makes her feel downright _playful_ sometimes – even if she doesn't show it – and that's still terrifying for Regina. She has learned that her moments of levity are fleeting, and often followed by overwhelming pain.

Emma, though … Emma helps her forget that fear.

She hears footsteps on the boardwalk behind her, and then there are arms wrapping around her and a chest being pressed into her back.

"I like it this way," Emma says brightly.

Regina scoffs. "Of course you do, because you're a child." She waves her hand lazily; the hull stays red but the sails are white once again. Emma won't see it until they're on the boat, but she leaves a running border of dark yellow around them in compromise.

Emma rests her chin on Regina's shoulder softly and hums in the back of her throat, and she can feel the vibrations under her skin. Regina reaches up to wrap a hand around one of the forearms crossed over her chest.

"You ripped my heart out today," Emma whispers after long moments.

"Don't," Regina snaps. Her hand tightens around Emma's arm and pushes it, perhaps unconsciously, tighter against her chest. She won't allow Emma her gallows humor on this point.

"A year ago today," Emma continues, ignoring her, "you pulled my heart out of my chest and saved my life."

Regina presses harder on the skin beneath her hand and realizes that her nails are digging in, imprinting their crescent mark there. She doesn't release the pressure.

"Don't joke." She sounds stern and fierce, but she feels uneven. Regina remembers a streak of blood that isn't Henry's on his forehead, and a wildly distraught Mary Margaret, and the phantom thump of a heartbeat in her hands. "Not about that."

"I'm not," Emma answers.

"Then you shouldn't be so blasé about it!"

"Blasé?" Emma repeats.

"Yes!" Regina drops her hand away from Emma's arms and steps out of the circle they'd created around her. She misses the weight of them against her but ignores it, and turns instead to face the other woman with a grimace. "Don't just say it like it wasn't … like it was just another day."

Emma doesn't react to her anger. She'd expected this reaction from Regina because it's the same one she has every time Emma even dares to make a reference to what had happened in the street that day. Regina remembers loss and death, and Emma does too, but it's more than that for her: it's the memory of waking and finally feeling rested again, of opening her eyes and knowing that the piece of her life she hadn't thought to miss had finally clicked in to place.

"Regina," Emma says gently. She reaches for the other woman's hand and tugs on it until Regina takes a step forward. Emma doesn't let go but she lets their hands hang limp in the air. She knows that the other woman responds poorly to force, and has learned how to coax her without making her feel threatened. "I'm not being flippant. I just …" and she shrugs a bit because she knows that Regina hates it, and smiles at the glare she receives, "A year ago today you told me you loved me."

Regina heaves a deep sigh and steps closer. A year has passed since Emma died in the middle of Main Street (or near enough that it makes no difference to Regina), and she can't forget how those few minutes in a world without Emma Swan had felt. Much like a year without Henry had felt, actually, only with the sting of guilt to make the heartbreak worse. She had sent Henry over the town line with Emma to save him, but Emma had become the Dark One because of her – for her.

A year has passed and some things have changed, and some haven't: Emma is still the Savior, but there's a shadow in her now that hadn't been there before, and it looks like blackened trees and animals with their hearts ground to dust (the trees are still black and the ground hasn't healed and there's no animal or insect life within that mile long circle, and Emma _never, ever_ goes there); they had been a common sight before the Dark One had switched bodies, but Emma and Regina of then isn't the same as Emma and Regina of now, and no one stares anymore when Emma kisses her over the table at Granny's.

Henry is taller and beloved by nearly everyone, fiercely protective of both of his moms and irritating in the way that all teenagers are wont to be; they're the family they always were, but not: they are stronger, older, and more certain of one another.

"Please don't tell me you think of this as our anniversary, Miss Swan," Regina drawls, and she pointedly ignores the swoop of her stomach.

"Isn't it?" Emma counters.

She hadn't considered something as mundane as an anniversary for them. They are together – wholly and stubbornly and sometimes irritatingly together – but they have no titles, and no definition. They don't refer to one another as girlfriends; they're just Emma and Regina, two women who share a son, and a penchant for getting under the others' skin, and a love that's been hard won.

Regina hasn't thought about an anniversary, but maybe Emma's right and it's today. She can't say it wouldn't be fitting for them: all that fighting and desperation and fear, and it had only ended with love. Who else but they would have the anniversary of their first declarations of love on the same day that one of them died?

_Was it always going to end this way?_ Regina had asked Merlin, and how else could it end for two people who couldn't stop saving each other long enough to properly hate one another?

She had terrorized an entire kingdom and submitted them to a curse because she'd been angry, and afraid of what would be left of her if she let go of that; Emma had longed for the family that she'd never been able to find and then spent years running from anything that might have resembled one. They are a study in impossibilities, in contradictions and improbable convergences. Regina has spent the majority of her life as the woman too afraid to stop; Emma, as the one too afraid to start; and somehow, they have converged on Henry, who is the perfect continuation of them both.

"I guess it is," Regina concedes.

Emma grins and frames Regina's face with both hands before kissing her soundly. She hums against Regina's lips and feels them start to arc up into a smile; Emma lifts one hand and brushes away the locks of hair falling against the other woman's cheek, and surreptitiously makes their entire boat sea-foam green and pink.

"I knew you'd see it my way," Emma says, and punctuates the statement with another kiss.

"Your way?" Regina exclaims, and her eyes are bright and she can't hide her smile, "You didn't …" Then her face clears in sudden understanding and she spins quickly on her heel to see the boat. "It's hideous!"

Emma laughs and catches Regina's hand as she raises it to change it back, and that's how Henry finds them: breathless and smiling as though they've never been anything less than happy.

"Hey," he calls as he approaches. "We just have to … hey! Who made the boat green and pink?"

Emma can't find it in her to look properly sheepish when Regina is laughing like she is, but she doesn't try to stop her when she wiggles her fingers and reverts it to the red and white of before.

"Your mother has horrible taste," Regina explains with a disdainful sniff.

"I like pink and green," a new voice says.

Mary Margaret and David have arrived, and Regina tosses her head and makes a motion at Mary Margaret as if to simultaneously say, "Well, that explains it," and "Of course you do."

"What's wrong with pink and green?" Mary Margaret demands.

David laughs and hands Emma a bottle of wine. "Here."

"Thanks," Emma says, and Regina eyes the bottle suspiciously.

"And just what exactly did you bring me down here for, Miss Swan?"

"A celebratory dinner."

"In celebration of what?" Regina deadpans, though she knows the answer.

"The day you told me you loved me." Emma raises her tone and makes it slightly wheedling, drawing out the vowel on loved because she knows that Regina hates it.

"An oversight I clearly need to rectify."

They've had a difficult year – many difficult years, really – and they're scarred in ways that should have made this moment impossible, but the sun is starting to set over the water and they're smiling together on the wharf like it hasn't taken them lifetimes to get here.

"I better not set foot on that boat and find dinner from Granny's, Emma," Regina threatens.

Emma smirks at her and says a quick goodbye to her family and disappears in a cloud of smoke (the only ability she's retained from those days with her name on a dagger). Moments later their boat is neon purple and orange.

Regina grumbles and hugs their son. She doesn't hug the two idiots, but she does offer them a smile as she says, "We'll be home before midnight. If you need us …"

"Go, Regina," Mary Margaret interrupts. "Relax. Enjoy dinner. We'll be fine."

So Regina presses a kiss to her son's forehead and transports herself over the water.

"Did you guys ever come up with a name for that thing?" David asks as the three of them make their way back to town.

Henry smiles. "The Safe Haven."

He hears the sound of his mothers' laughter on the wind.


End file.
